Comparing pupil's results of different school subjects

[Karel Novak]

Dear all,

I would like to ask you a question wheter there is a possibility in Stata to compare values of different school subjects, so I can get standardized results. My "problem" is that some of the pupils in the school were tested in math, but others were tested in english language, but the results on average were worse in math than in english. I can't just compare the absolute test scores. Firstly, I was thinking about calculation percentiles, but I am not sure if it does what I want.

I would like to get a comparasion on the school level (2nd level), so it should be irelevant that some pupils took test in math or in another school subject.

For this example I work with two separate datasets (in first there are students results from math tests, in the second are results from english language test):

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input byte Student_id int School_id byte results_math
 1 201 55
 2 201 58
 3 201 62
 4 202 29
 5 202 59
 6 203 75
 7 203 73
 8 203 70
 9 203 39
10 203 72
end

Thank you for your help.

[Phil Bromiley]

You didn't get a quick answer. You'll increase your chances of a useful answer by following the FAQ on asking questions - provide Stata code in code delimiters, readable Stata output, and sample data using dataex. Being able to replicate your problem helps us help you.

The short answer to your specific question is yes, you can do almost any calculation you can conceive in Stata. If you want to work with percentiles use the pctile command to generate the percentiles. Alternatively, you could standardize the variables. As for what makes sense, that is a matter of substance and you must be the expert on substance.